The Seattle Art Museum’s growing collection contains over 25,000 works of art from around the world, with additional rotating exhibits bringing even more pieces to Seattle art enthusiasts. Stop by today to check out these temporary exhibits before they’re gone or check out the permanent offerings. View more at SAM.
Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams – open Oct. 17, 2024-Jan. 19, 2025
Co-organized by the Seattle Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art, this exhibition will be the summative career retrospective of one of the most prolific and boundary-breaking artists of our time. For fifty years, she has upended hierarchies of art and craft, insisting that artistic expression is that “extra inch of life” that nourishes the soul even in the most challenging circumstances.
Calder: In Motion, The Shirley Family Collection – open through Oct. 20
This exhibition traces the career of revolutionary sculptor Alexander Calder, highlighting his most important themes, styles, and materials from the 1920s through the 1970s.
Bethany Collins: At Sea – open Nov. 14, 2024-May 4, 2025
Bethany Collins is the recipient of the 2023 Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize, awarded by SAM to an early career Black artist. Collins’s conceptually driven work uses language as both subject and medium to explore the nuances and intersections of language, racial identity, and American history.
Following Space: Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder – open Nov. 20, 2024-June 1, 2025
This exhibition pairs wood sculptures by Pittsburgh native Thaddeus Mosley with works by the radical inventor of the mobile, Alexander Calder.
Jacob Lawrence: American Storyteller – open through Jan. 5, 2025
One of the 20th century’s most impactful American artists, Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) is celebrated for his deftness as a visual storyteller. This focused exhibition brings together works by Lawrence from SAM’s and local collections in a series of case studies that survey themes that inform the artist’s works.
Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei – open March 12-Sept. 7, 2025
Ai Weiwei is one of the world’s most well-known and celebrated artists. His work thrives on making familiar life unfamiliar again, consistently calling upon viewers to explore social, cultural, and political issues. SAM will present the artist’s first US retrospective in over a decade and his largest-ever exhibition in the US.
Diego Cibelli: The Triumph of Nature Over Man’s Folly – open through May 10, 2026
Contemporary artist Diego Cibelli presents a site-specific response to the ceiling fresco in SAM’s ornate Porcelain Room, The Triumph of Valor over Time by Giovanni Tiepolo. This project is guest curated by Christian Larsen, a cultural historian and independent curator.
